


In Which Grantaire Does Not Want To Know What His Character Archetype Is (And He Gets Stuck In A Tree)

by eraofstories



Series: Les Amis de Greendale [1]
Category: Community, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Les Community, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 20:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eraofstories/pseuds/eraofstories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossover where the Amis are a rival (French naturally) study group at Greendale. When the two study groups meet Abed studies the Amis for the purpose of figuring out their character archetypes, but Grantaire isn't interested in his. At all. Shenanigans ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Grantaire Does Not Want To Know What His Character Archetype Is (And He Gets Stuck In A Tree)

**Author's Note:**

> So leninmeringuepie on tumblr came up with this AU, and then this fic... happened. You can find more stuff about the verse at her tumblr and mine (eraofstories) tagged as 'les community.' (Steelplatedhearts has also contributed.)

"So," asks Grantaire, "What's his deal?" He nods towards Abed who is currently studying Enjolras closely. 

“Abed?” Jeff chuckles. “He’s Abed. No one can explain him.” 

“Well, you could try. Because he’s staring creepily at my friends, so if he’s about to go serial killer I’d like to know.”

“He’s just analyzing them. Not to kill them,” Jeff added hurriedly, rolling his eyes when Grantaire looked alarmed and started to rise, “just to figure out their character archetype.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” 

“Abed is weird, okay? But he isn’t bad. He interacts with the world through television, and so he figures people out by figuring out their characters, like what trope they would be if they were fictional.”

“So he’s crazy?” Grantaire’s voice is flat. 

“No, he’s, look, when our study group formed there was a lot of drama for stupid reasons. I ended up giving a really dumb speech which apparently wasn’t good enough because I didn’t mean it enough or whatever.” 

“A feeling I know well. Heaven forbid anyone ever argue a point well if they don’t believe in it. Apparently if you don’t mean it enough then the words don’t count at all.” Grantaire glared at Enjolras a bit. 

“I see you’ve had some of the same problems as me. But that isn’t really the important point. I was being a bit of dick, apparently. But the point is that I told them that Abed wasn’t just a crazy person, he is a shaman. And I didn’t mean it then, but it’s true.” 

“Uhuh. You realize that all of you Spanish weirdos are nuts, right?” 

“Your boyfriend wants to start a revolution over the school flag.” 

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Grantaire glares at Jeff and then glances nervously back at Enjolras who isn’t actually even looking at them, let alone hearing what they’re saying. 

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. But your lot are no better than ours, and what I’m telling you is that Abed isn’t as crazy as you’d think. He’s good at reading people. Seeing the truth of them and all that. It’s a bit uncanny to be honest with you. Come on, let’s go see what he thinks of your friends.”

Grantaire followed Jeff, curious to see what this supposed ‘shaman’ would have to say. 

“Have you worked them out yet?” Jeff asked. 

“What? The French group?” Abed looked surprised to see Jeff and Grantaire. Apparently he had been so engrossed in his study that he hadn’t noticed their approach. 

“We’re called the Amis. Honestly.” Grantaire was pretty sure he shouldn’t care about Abed getting the name right at all, but everyone was rather attached to it, Grantaire included. It had been Jehan’s idea, and they all had a soft spot for him, even Enjolras who spent so much time obsessed with protest and revolution and so on. 

“Fitting,” noted Abed, nodding. “I think I’ve got them pretty well worked out,” he said, turning to Jeff. 

“Really?” Grantaire couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice (but then, when could he?).

“Yes,” Abed didn’t seem to pick up on Grantaire’s tone anyway, so he supposed it didn’t matter at all. “First I had to figure out what you were overall. You can’t just ignore that. You might just have been a loose group of acquaintances, really, just working on class work together. But you aren’t. You’re a real group, and so there are certain people who are necessary, and you’ve got them. For example, that one, with the glasses-” he gestured over to where Combeferre and Courfeyrac had joined Enjolras. 

“Combeferre,” Grantaire supplied. 

“Yes, he’s your guide. He’s the sensible one, the one who knows the answers and who admits it when he doesn’t. He thinks things through instead of rushing into things. Not like him.” He gestured to Courfeyrac. “He’s the center. He holds your group together, because whatever brings the rest of you there he’s there because, first and foremost, he likes you all, and he likes your group.”

Grantaire found himself nodding. Abed might be weird, but he supposed that Jeff had had a point about him being smart. And apparently right. “Yeah, that’s Courfeyrac.”

“Then there’s him. I believe he is Enjolras.” At Grantaire’s nod Abed continued, “He’s different. At first I thought he was a rebel like Britta, someone who always wants to have something to fight for, anything really, even when there’s no point. But he’s not. He’s your leader. He really believes in all of it, but he also makes most of you believe it too, or want to.” 

“I see.” Grantaire didn’t know what else to say. It appeared that Abed was considerably better at this than he had though. 

Then Abed turned to Grantaire. “You’re-”

“Oh no, no, nope, not happening. I know more than enough about myself already, thanks but no thanks. Bye!” And Grantaire turned and started running. 

All he could think was that Abed was too good at this whole seeing the truth of people thing, and Grantaire put a lot of effort into pretending that he didn’t see the truth of himself. He wasn’t interested in letting Abed tell him the things he worked so hard at ignoring, so he ran. Eventually, when he reached the library he stopped, panting, and slowed down. He looked behind himself, half expecting Abed to be behind him, ready to analyze him, but the hall was empty. 

“Well that was fun,” Grantaire muttered to himself, slipping into the library, where no one tried to tell you stupid truths.  
\-----------  
The next day when the Amis met for study group, however, everyone was talking about Abed’s analyses. Grantaire tried to sit through it, hoping that Enjolras’ pleas, which were getting louder and louder to “please focus, there is a world that needs changing” would win out over gossip. However, it wasn’t very long before Courfeyrac turned to him and said, “Grantaire, you’re not participating!” He laughed, jostling Grantaire’s shoulder, “Come one, what’d you think of yours? It’s accurate, isn’t it?” 

Grantaire froze, and realizing that everyone was looking at him he panicked and said, “I don’t know what he said about me.” Then, as Courfeyrac opened his mouth to tell him, Grantaire ran again. 

This time he didn’t stop until he was outside on the questionably landscaped campus of Greedale. He stopped for a moment once he reached the doors and looked frantically for somewhere to hide, because he could hear Courfeyrac following him, shouting that he shouldn’t be such a coward. With Courfeyrac’s footsteps getting louder and louder he did the only thing he could think of, ran to the nearest tree, and started climbing. 

Grantaire had never been much of a tree climber even when he was young, but necessity was a great teacher, and in moments he was hidden in the leaves. By the time Courfeyrac exited the building he was pretty much invisible. 

“What the heck?” said Courfeyrac, and Grantaire thought for a moment that he’d been found out, before peering through the leaves to see that the entirety of the Amis had followed him, including Enjolras at the back of the group looking very put out about the fact that he was apparently not going to be changing the world today. “Where’d he go?” Courfeyrac turned to the others in confusion. 

Within moments everyone was searching for him, and Grantaire decided firmly that he was not coming down out of his tree for any reason. 

Now that he thought about it, Grantaire couldn’t help but find it amusing to watch his friends run around trying to work out where he had gone. 

By the time it got dark only Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Jehan were left, and Combeferre, ever the voice of reason said gently, “I think we can safely assume that he has gone home or something of the sort.” 

“But what if he got kidnapped and we need to go on a rescue mission? We can’t just abandon him in his hour of need!” Grantaire was not entirely sure that he liked how excited Jehan seemed by the prospect of his kidnapping. 

“That seems unlikely. Who goes around kidnapping college kids?” Courfeyrac seemed almost confident of this, but not quite. 

“He has not been kidnapped,” said Combeferre, “And I’m going home. I’ve got homework, and so do the rest of you, so I’d suggest that you do the same.” 

“You really think he’s okay?” asked Enjolras who had been silent until then. “He hasn’t been answering his phone.” 

“Enjolras,” said Combeferre, “he’s never good about his phone, and he probably left it in his locker when he ran off. You have an essay for politics of revolutionary France which you should go work on.” 

“Right.” Enjolras nodded, and the four of them headed off, leaving Grantaire in his tree. 

It was at this point, when he tried to get down having finally escaped the risk of being spotted doing so that Grantaire discovered that he wasn’t actually able to climb back down. Looking below him, he found himself wondering how on Earth he had even managed to get up into the tree in the first place, and certain that he was not going to try to jump to the next lowest branch which was at least five feet below him. 

He didn’t even need to check his pockets to know that Enjolras was right; he had left his phone in his locker and couldn’t call for help. “Well fuck.” 

The next morning the first people he saw in the academic area, which was to say near him were the Amis. Grantaire had woken up early, when the sun came up right in his face, so when the Amis arrived in a group he was already watching for someone to show up. 

They gathered in a circle a small distance away. “Alright,” began Enjolras. “Here’s what we know. He was here yesterday afternoon, but no one’s seen him since. He wasn’t at his apartment, and he wasn’t at any of the bars.”

“Should we call the police?” asked Cosette. “I mean, it’s looking like he’s a missing person, right?” 

Before Enjolras could respond, however, Grantaire shouted, “OVER HERE! I’M IN THE TREE!” 

Everyone rushed over and looked up at him in silence for a moment before Enjolras, his face bright red, shouted “What the hell Grantaire, we were worried about you. Have you been up there all night?” 

“I. Um. Yes?” Grantaire couldn’t help but cower a little bit before Enjolras’ anger. Enjolras was charismatic at the best of times, but when he was angry there was something about him that convinced you that he would burn down the world. Grantaire was used to this look, and under other circumstances might even have enjoyed watching it, but at this moment, on only a few hours of uncomfortable sleep and without having eaten since lunch the day before, it was just alarming. 

“Why?” Enjolras drew out the syllable, his voice low and dangerous.

“For art!” cried Jehan, delightedly. “You’re experiencing nature aren’t you? Are you going to paint your experiences? Can I watch? Ohh, can I write a poem about it? Tell me about what it was like!” 

“Is that right Grantaire, were you up there for art?” Enjolras looked entirely unconvinced. 

“Um. No. I seem to be stuck? I was just trying to get away from Courf!” 

“You’re stuck. I see. And you didn’t consider that before you got up into the tree?”

“I was in a hurry.” Grantaire couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of his voice. 

“I see. Well, we’ve got to get you down now, I suppose.” He moved towards the trunk as if he was planning to climb up and haul Grantaire out himself before Joly grabbed him. 

“Wait. Enjolras. What are you doing?”

“Getting him out of the tree. What does it look like?” 

“That’s a bad plan. A really terrible plan.” Joly shook his head emphatically. 

“Yes,” agreed Bossuet. “A terrible plan. Terrible things happen.” His eyes took on a haunted quality. “There are broken bones at the end of that plan.” 

“I see,” said Enjolras. No one felt the need to ask what precisely had happened to Joly and Bossuet. At this point in their friendship everyone was fully aware of Bossuet’s bad luck, and of the fact that he and Joly had been friends pretty much forever. This was simply another story from their childhood no one needed to know much about. “What then, do you suggest we do?” 

“Call 911. You’ll end up having to do it either way, but this way no one gets hurt.” Joly nodded again to emphasize his point. 

“Fine.” Enjolras pulled out his phone, and twenty minutes later a Grantaire was climbing down a fire truck ladder while the Dean stood in the background wringing his hands and looking sadly at a board which had said ‘2 days since the last emergency vehicle on campus.’ But which now had a 0 in place of the 2. 

“I had been so hoping that we were going to break our record,” he sobbed onto the shoulder of a very alarmed looking Bahorel. 

“Right.” Bahorel awkwardly patted him on the shoulder while looking at the rest of the Amis desperately. No one went to his aid. 

Finally Grantaire got down to the ground, where most of the Amis (with the exception of course of Bahorel who was still being sobbed on) were waiting for him, and was passed around as everyone patted him on the back and thanked the firemen. 

“Sorry,” Courfeyrac said shamefaced. “I didn’t mean to upset you that much.”

“Nah, I probably overreacted.” Grantaire chuckled sheepishly, while thinking privately that he had done no such thing. 

“Yeah, well. Whatever.”

Then Enjolras grabbed Grantaire and pulled him forcefully away from the group. No one followed, even when Grantaire sent a terrified look at Eponine, who just smirked at him and mouthed “Your own fault.” He glared. 

When Enjolras had decided that they were apparently far enough away from everyone else he said very seriously, “Grantaire, you didn’t try to get down until after we left.” It wasn’t a question, but Grantaire shook his head in agreement. “Why? Why were you so scared? You could have just shouted and told us. Maybe during hour three of us searching for you? What the heck Grantaire? We were scared. I was really scared.” For a moment he looked very young, far from the revolutionary he so often appeared to be. 

“Come on,” said Grantaire bitterly. “If you were me, would you want to hear what Abed had to say about you? I already know myself far better than I could ever have actually wanted to. I don’t need other people to tell me everything that’s wrong with me.” He looked down. 

“Grantaire, that’s dumb. Can I tell you what he said?” Enjolras pulled Grantaire’s head up, so that they were looking at one another. 

Grantaire nodded silently. 

“He said that you were a hopeful skeptic, that you want to find something to believe in, but you haven’t found it yet, or you’re scared or something, I don’t know exactly. Whatever. But he was wrong. You don’t need something to believe in.”

“What, you think I’m that hopeless?” Grantaire laughed bitterly. 

“No. You need someone who believes in you.” Enjolras smiled, and it took Grantaire a minute to realize what he meant. 

“You-”

Enjolras kissed him, and Grantaire couldn’t find it in himself to worry about Abed being wrong (and right too, but he’d found his thing to believe in a while back) when Enjolras was kissing him. 

“NOT BOYFRIENDS MY ASS!” yelled Jeff, who had apparently arrived and been informed of events by the Amis. 

Grantaire stopped kissing Enjolras for a minute to shout back “Fuck off!” After which he went back to kissing Enjolras, on the theory that it was a very important task, and one which he needed to work on.


End file.
